(09-07-2023 10:56 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  I did a mock of this previously and came up with something like this:

Big 10 (18)
SEC (16)
ACC (17)
Big 12 (16)
Notre Dame
UConn
Army
Washington State
Oregon State
MW (11- all except SJSU)
AAC (9- UAB, ECU, Memphis, Rice, USF, Temple, UTSA, Tulane, Tulsa)
Sun Belt (5- App State, Coastal Carolina, Louisiana, Marshall, Southern Miss)
MAC (6- Buffalo, Ohio, Miami (OH), Toledo, NIU, WMU)
CUSA (5- Liberty, La Tech, NMSU, UTEP, WKU)

Total: 108

You left out Navy.

I'd say probably 80-100. I'd also be fine with the top 20-30 breaking off

(09-08-2023 06:54 AM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  If a break off does occur these are the schools deserving to move to the top level:
Alabama
Georgia
LSU
Ohio State
Michigan
Clemson
Oklahoma
Florida State
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Florida
TX AM
Texas
Oregon
USC
Notre Dame
Auburn

The first 6 are easy then it gets tough to add. But these are the only programs with a reasonable chance to win a NC. Trying to come up with a team/teams who may be close to entering this group an it hard to add, close one Penn St?

If the idea is to create a Super League, how on Earth is Penn State even debatably “close” and not clearly in? They are one of the obvious elite blue bloods out there. Even putting aside the fan base and financial resources (where they’d be clearly in the top 10), Penn State has been a straight up better on-the-field football program in the CFP era (not to mention historically) than half of the schools on that list.

60-70

Split the P4 and Notre Dame

ACC 17
B12 18
B1G 18
SEC 14
Indy 1

(09-07-2023 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  All that play now. Anyone should be able to play FBS if they are willing to commit the resources and scholarships. That doesn’t mean that everyone deserves to be in a power conference, but I’d always push back on a cutting the total number of FBS schools for the sake of cutting schools.

I'd be OK with that, with one caveat. The cost of additional scholarships to be in FBS must be greater than the money the school will be guaranteed to get from the NCAAT and the CFP (which is about to significantly increase). Otherwise, you can't say it's the school committing more resources, and who wouldn't want to move up to get free money for doing so?

At least 100.

(09-08-2023 01:31 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  All of them. App St. was one of my favorite move ups. I hope Jacksonville St., JMU stay good too, I like them. They are my ECU the next generation schools that I root for like ECU.

We love Fresno too.

I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Fans will never agree on what it is that made college football great to begin with. Everyone has his own opinion on that, as this thread will certainly demonstrate.

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Yeah, there are probably 20-30 programs who are on a different level than even the rest of the P4 programs, much less the rest of FBS. My personal preference would either be a system that made it more relatively equitable for all of FBS or that group of programs who are clearly their own separate thing leave and do their own separate thing.

(09-08-2023 08:11 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Fans will never agree on what it is that made college football great to begin with. Everyone has his own opinion on that, as this thread will certainly demonstrate.

Fine. My point is still that I want OSU, USC, Texas, Bama, Oklahoma, Penn State, etc to just go away and do their own thing. That would be awesome.

(09-07-2023 10:56 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  I did a mock of this previously and came up with something like this:

Big 10 (18)
SEC (16)
ACC (17)
Big 12 (16)
Notre Dame
UConn
Army
Washington State
Oregon State
MW (11- all except SJSU)
AAC (9- UAB, ECU, Memphis, Rice, USF, Temple, UTSA, Tulane, Tulsa)
Sun Belt (5- App State, Coastal Carolina, Louisiana, Marshall, Southern Miss)
MAC (6- Buffalo, Ohio, Miami (OH), Toledo, NIU, WMU)
CUSA (5- Liberty, La Tech, NMSU, UTEP, WKU)

Total: 108

I know I've commented on this already, but here's how I would adjust it. I would only have six conferences (AAC, ACC, BIG, Big XII, MWC, SEC). I would drop the C-USA, MAC, and SBC because they've always been glorified FCS conferences, well the latter of the two have, the C-USA has recently turned into one. I would keep the entirety of the MWC, and add New Mexico State, Oregon State, UTEP, and Washington State. For the AAC, I would drop UTSA, bring back Navy, add Louisiana Tech from the C-USA, Marshall and Southern Miss from the SBC, and Army and UConn from the independents. That gives the AAC 14 teams. Those six conferences, plus Notre Dame is 98 teams, which is a little bit more than my number, but I feel that's a decent number of teams to have at the top.

(09-08-2023 08:14 AM)b2b Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:11 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Fans will never agree on what it is that made college football great to begin with. Everyone has his own opinion on that, as this thread will certainly demonstrate.

Fine. My point is still that I want OSU, USC, Texas, Bama, Oklahoma, Penn State, etc to just go away and do their own thing. That would be awesome.

You mean, all the schools that make college football great should leave?

(09-08-2023 08:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:14 AM)b2b Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:11 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Fans will never agree on what it is that made college football great to begin with. Everyone has his own opinion on that, as this thread will certainly demonstrate.

Fine. My point is still that I want OSU, USC, Texas, Bama, Oklahoma, Penn State, etc to just go away and do their own thing. That would be awesome.

You mean, all the schools that make college football great should leave?

It depends on one's perspective I guess. IF you're Illinois it would be a disaster. If you're ECU and App State you go on w/ life like normal.

I wouldn't be too quick to jettison the little guys.

The big guys wouldn't be the big guys without the little guys.

(09-08-2023 07:58 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  All that play now. Anyone should be able to play FBS if they are willing to commit the resources and scholarships. That doesn’t mean that everyone deserves to be in a power conference, but I’d always push back on a cutting the total number of FBS schools for the sake of cutting schools.

I'd be OK with that, with one caveat. The cost of additional scholarships to be in FBS must be greater than the money the school will be guaranteed to get from the NCAAT and the CFP (which is about to significantly increase). Otherwise, you can't say it's the school committing more resources, and who wouldn't want to move up to get free money for doing so?

I think that is a little harsh - you’re basically saying a school has to *lose* money to move up. Now, to be sure, the cost of adding football scholarships isn’t just the football scholarships themselves, but also an equivalent number of women’s sports scholarships for Title IX purposes. So, I’m looking at it holistically: if a school wants to add FBS football and that also means opening up more opportunities for women in the process, that’s an overall societal benefit and we shouldn’t be applying arbitrary gatekeeping mechanisms.

In any event, I’m certainly not populist when it comes to conference realignment - the power conferences can and should be able to seek to accrue as much power and revenue as the market will bear. However, I also have a core issue with simply *structurally* cutting off competition from the get go. If schools want to try to be FBS schools, then that should be their prerogative. If they have to play independent because no existing conference will take them, then that should be *their* choice (as opposed to the NCAA’s choice). It’s no different than a startup retailer trying to compete with Amazon and Walmart - it’s super hard and the likelihood of success is realistically very low, but to just arbitrarily tell that startup retailer that they *can’t* try at all belies basic free market (and I would say American) principles. New FBS schools shouldn’t be getting a financial handout from anyone, but by the same token, if they’re funding the requisite scholarships to comply with Title IX, then that shouldn’t be foreclosed.

(09-07-2023 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  All that play now. Anyone should be able to play FBS if they are willing to commit the resources and scholarships. That doesn’t mean that everyone deserves to be in a power conference, but I’d always push back on a cutting the total number of FBS schools for the sake of cutting schools.

100% this. If you don't want to watch certain teams, then don't watch them.

(09-08-2023 08:44 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 07:58 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  All that play now. Anyone should be able to play FBS if they are willing to commit the resources and scholarships. That doesn’t mean that everyone deserves to be in a power conference, but I’d always push back on a cutting the total number of FBS schools for the sake of cutting schools.

I'd be OK with that, with one caveat. The cost of additional scholarships to be in FBS must be greater than the money the school will be guaranteed to get from the NCAAT and the CFP (which is about to significantly increase). Otherwise, you can't say it's the school committing more resources, and who wouldn't want to move up to get free money for doing so?

I think that is a little harsh - you’re basically saying a school has to *lose* money to move up. Now, to be sure, the cost of adding football scholarships isn’t just the football scholarships themselves, but also an equivalent number of women’s sports scholarships for Title IX purposes. So, I’m looking at it holistically: if a school wants to add FBS football and that also means opening up more opportunities for women in the process, that’s an overall societal benefit and we shouldn’t be applying arbitrary gatekeeping mechanisms.

In any event, I’m certainly not populist when it comes to conference realignment - the power conferences can and should be able to seek to accrue as much power and revenue as the market will bear. However, I also have a core issue with simply *structurally* cutting off competition from the get go. If schools want to try to be FBS schools, then that should be their prerogative. If they have to play independent because no existing conference will take them, then that should be *their* choice (as opposed to the NCAA’s choice). It’s no different than a startup retailer trying to compete with Amazon and Walmart - it’s super hard and the likelihood of success is realistically very low, but to just arbitrarily tell that startup retailer that they *can’t* try at all belies basic free market (and I would say American) principles. New FBS schools shouldn’t be getting a financial handout from anyone, but by the same token, if they’re funding the requisite scholarships to comply with Title IX, then that shouldn’t be foreclosed.

I'm not saying they have to lose money to move up. I'm just saying they should have to make an investment to move up. If that investment is in more scholarships for women, that's fine. But if you are guaranteed more money in your pocket just by moving up than if you stay in FCS, that's not "investing" at all. That's just taking a handout.

(09-08-2023 08:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:14 AM)b2b Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:11 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-08-2023 08:03 AM)b2b Wrote:  I want a true Premier League to form ASAP so the rest of us can focus on what made college football great to begin with.

Fans will never agree on what it is that made college football great to begin with. Everyone has his own opinion on that, as this thread will certainly demonstrate.

Fine. My point is still that I want OSU, USC, Texas, Bama, Oklahoma, Penn State, etc to just go away and do their own thing. That would be awesome.

You mean, all the schools that make college football great should leave?

The B12 seems happier now that OUT are getting out of the way.

I'd like CFB to go back to more like it was in the 90s. I'd like to see 80-100 teams with 8-10 10-team conferences. 9-game round-robin with no conference championship games. And as much of a proponent of a playoff as I was back then, I'd prefer at this time to go back to bowls-and-polls. The 4-team CFP has just caused an unhealthy hyper-focus on that as the ONLY important thing out there. (Although I realize the 12-team CFP should improve things here.)

I realize the genie is out of the bottle on all this, and it'll never happen.